


Apis Mellifera

by muurmuur



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A support reimagined, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chapter 1: Hurt, Chapter 2: Comfort, Character Study, F/M, Fight for Fhirdiad CF Route, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pining, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muurmuur/pseuds/muurmuur
Summary: Things were not going well for Ferdinand von Aegir. He was an exile in his own country, and an untested commander at the vanguard of an often despised military force. He’d only loved one woman in his life. Regrettably, she’d disliked him from their very first introduction.So here he was, disinherited and disfavored, a general in a war that he was convinced was necessary, but also cruel. Even if he was clever enough to understand his position, he was still too simpleminded to offer Edelgard a different path ahead. Bloody, Hubert called it instead, and so it was. So it would be. Maybe until Ferdinand was dead.Or: Dorothea feeds a starving honeybee.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	1. Digging a Hole

Although he wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, and certainly not with such base language, things were not going well for Ferdinand von Aegir. He was an exile in his own country, firstly, which was just as absurd a notion as it was utterly devastating. Ferdinand had never been under the illusion that his father was a good man. To be quite frank, his childhood had been a lesson on how little goodness there was to be shared across the Adrestian nobility entire. With this prerequisite in mind, he’d once been of the perspective that a proper noble was the man who persevered for goodness even in light of his predilection for cruelty.

This had been naive, of course. No one was born cruel, nor were they born righteous. He’d even come to the uncomfortable conclusion that a silver spoon played no part at all in determining the weight of one’s soul. This revelation had been unpleasant when he’d been a boy watching as his father levied impossible demands on the laypeople of Adrestia, but it had become nearly unbearable now that Duke Aegir was languishing forgotten in a cell. _Earn your title_ , Edelgard had told Ferdinand, but had she known what that entailed?

They were killing people. Despite his matriculation at Garreg Mach, Ferdinand had never intended to become a killer. There were better words for it, of course: _general_ , chiefly, and _soldier_ , more broadly. That was nearly as absurd as everything else. Their war was the first in which he’d played part. He hadn’t even properly graduated from the Officer’s Academy. How could he possibly be a _general_? Surely it was because he was an Aegir, but if Aegir meant nothing, then what deal had been brokered to give him the rights of command?

It wasn’t a proper question. Ferdinand knew the answer: desperation. Adrestia was rotten. Edelgard had no one else to whom she could turn, let alone offer a position with such leverage against her cause. She’d given him that power because Ferdinand had been born into a deep, dark hole from which he could either climb or burying himself within, and she’d had the foresight to understand that he’d never relent to the latter. And so here he was, a man built and bred to wage war using rhetoric and bureaucracy, cleaning blood from the edge of his lance and trying his best not to vomit, because imperial generals did not vomit after they’d won a battle.

What else was there to be done? His father had introduced him to military men during his boyhood, but they’d all been as old and fat as the duke. What would they have done in his position, having just watched Arianrhod fall? Boast about their victory, perhaps, but Ferdinand lacked the appropriate audience. Edelgard had no time for boasting. Hubert despised him, or at the very least considered Ferdinand to be a fool. Caspar, as admirable as he was with his unyieldingly optimistic pragmatism, had never been one to hold a long conversation. And even if Caspar did sit across a table from him and offered up a discussion on tactics, what in all of the heavens would Ferdinand say? Would he tally the men he’d killed? Lament the men he’d lost? How many times could one hold that conversation before it became too despicable a topic to repeat again?

Not that his comrades would likely even be available for such a discussion. Ferdinand imagined that the first instinct of anyone with a beating heart would be to seek out some sort of affection after they’d culled an enemy force. But Ferdinand was cursed in that regard as well. He’d only loved one woman in his life, and she’d disliked him from their very first introduction. Sometimes he even feared that Dorothea hated him. He understood why, but only superficially. He imagined the heart of it had something to do with that old revelation of his: that they were all wretched, in the end.

And so he was disinherited, bruised and nauseated, alone, and largely disliked; a general in a war that he was convinced was necessary, but also cruel. Even if he was clever enough to understand his position, he was still too simpleminded to offer Edelgard a different path ahead. _Bloody_ , Hubert called it, and so it was. So it would be. Maybe until he was dead.

“Right, then,” he muttered to himself bracingly, “enough of that.”

Nothing good would come from investigating that dark thought too closely. He stood instead, setting his lance aside. One of the smaller sacrifices he’d made in the past five years was the indignity of storing weapons at his bedside. Not that a bedroll was much of a bed, nor a tent a proper bedroom, but at least the storm clouds that had been chasing them for days hadn’t yet burst. There was something particularly pitiful about sleeping in the mud. He wasn’t keen to suffer it yet again.

Ferdinand bowed under the tent’s low clearance and strode out into the night. The camp was buzzing, as it always was, no matter the hour. He couldn’t help but imagine them all as a hive. It was comforting when he considered their cause as something natural like that. It helped to take the artificial sheen off from everything: the bursts of glittering white magic as the wounded were healed, the shimmer of the moon against so much steel and silver. Yes, better to be a bee, perhaps, even if that meant living as a drone. Hadn’t he said something similar to someone before?

“Good evening, Ferdinand.”

Of course. How could he have possibly forgotten? The lingering green hint of his nausea mortified him more than ever. Surely it’d made a mess of his complexion. What would become of him if Dorothea considered him a craven, in addition to a shallow dandy? Well, no matter, and damn it all. He turned and offered her a crisp bow. She did not curtsy, of course, but gods help him if he were to abandon his etiquette as well.

“Good evening, Dorothea. How relieved I am to see you well.”

He would’ve preferred to tell her how fast his heart was suddenly racing at the sight of her. He’d been so talented at poetry, once. It was easy even in that moment to feel the inspiration of sonnets and soliloquies teasing at the surging whitewater of his relief. Here she was, a Valkyrie after their difficult but decisive victory in the west, no less stunning than she’d been on centerstage. Thank all of the gods. Thank the devils, even.

“And you as well,” Dorothea replied. She sounded almost sardonic. Naturally. No matter. Ferdinand cleared his throat and swallowed his inane similes about her chestnut hair and evergreen eyes before she had the chance to toss them back at him like daggers. She continued on along the path that he’d interrupted earlier, giving him neither the signal to follow her nor the look to leave her at peace. Ferdinand was tired, and miserable, and lonely. He chose the former.

“The vanguard served admirably at Arianrhod,” Dorothea offered as Ferdinand settled into pace beside her. He nodded, because he supposed he was meant to nod, much in the same way that he supposed she felt compelled to say something like that at all.

“Yes. Thank you. I hope you do not find it facetious for me to say that the mages corps rather won the day.”

The truth of the matter was that they’d burned Rodrigue Fraldarius alive, and his son as well, but that didn’t seem to be the sort of thing appropriate to acknowledge aloud. The quick dip of Dorothea’s head seemed to suggest the same.

“If you insist,” she replied. “In any case, it’s done.”

“Indeed.”

Ferdinand knew it wasn’t the right word to use. They were very nearly at the end of the war. Fhirdiad was so close that he could all but smell its crisp, ever-winter air. The only thing left to decide was if they’d win. To be honest, Ferdinand had begun to find it difficult to really care. Most likely Edelgard would lead them to victory. She was peerless in that regard: accomplishment, especially when it was against all odds. There had been a time when he would’ve despised such a concession, but the times had changed, after all. In the lesser likelihood of their loss, at least execution seemed far more likely for Ferdinand than the limbo of his father’s perpetual imprisonment. But he couldn’t tell Dorothea that he was anxious for the headsman’s axe, although he couldn’t manage to spout off any dishonest terms of encouragement, either.

Dorothea frowned. “Are you alright?” She leaned a little closer to him.

“Yes. Of course,” Ferdinand quickly answered. He stepped aside to reset the space between them. When they’d been students, a lifetime ago, she’d always worn perfume. It’d been an unusual scent: spicy and earthy, in contrast to the flowers and nectars that her peers had preferred to wear. Much to his embarrassment, her perfume had become to him an ambrosia of immense power. He’d become so accustomed to it, catching hints of it when they’d shared classrooms, that he’d even learned the trick of smelling it when she wasn’t there. It’d been like bread baking in the ovens at home; the fresh verdancy of young hay scattered for the horses; his mother peeling a clementine, when she’d been alive; her simple smile, her laughter, her handing him a piece to enjoy.

Dorothea didn’t wear it anymore. Ferdinand wasn’t quick enough in his dance away from her not to notice. Despite his better judgment, he turned his head to look at her. Her eyes widened slightly at his sudden, unabashed gaze. He was just so terribly tired. _What happened to your perfume?_ he very nearly asked her. _Would you wear it for me again? Are you gracious enough to take pity on a wretch like me?_

“There you are!” Caspar intervened. Ferdinand was smart enough to be relieved for the interruption.

“Caspar!” Dorothea greeted him, bracing him to stop in his hurried jog with the flash of her palms. “Goodness. Be careful! You’ll end up in a campfire if you aren’t careful.”

“Sorry!” Caspar laughed bashfully. The sound quickly died on his tongue. Ferdinand frowned. That wasn’t good. Caspar had never been one for severity.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Caspar revealed, hushing into a whispered tone. “Hubert’s orders.”

“Oh dear,” Dorothea sighed. Ferdinand felt compelled to agree. What on earth had happened that had forced Hubert to turn Caspar into an envoy?

“To be kept in the strictest confidence,” Caspar continued, no doubt reciting the words from memory, and in spite of what Dorothea had said. “There’s been a follow-up attack on Arianrhod. The fort’s been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Ferdinand echoed. “In what manner?” He stiffened, turning to seek out Hubert from whatever shadow he was hiding within. Ferdinand had left good men behind to hold Arianrhod. They wouldn’t have fallen to a simple counterattack. Did Edelgard truly not intend to tell him what had happened firsthand? Did she not even owe him that?

“ _Destroyed_. It’s gone. It wasn’t the Kingdom,” Caspar added conspiratorially. “The Emperor says we need to advance our siege of Fhirdiad and bring all of this to an end as quickly as possible. We’ll be marching in the morning. And no talk about Arianrhod,” he hastily amended, as if Ferdinand could have possibly forgotten what he’d said. “Not until after. If any of your men do mention it, the answer is that it had to do with the Church.”

“With the Church _how_?” Dorothea prodded. She clutched her hands tight to her chest, worrying over the brooch that hung there. “And what about the people of Arianrhod? The villagers? There were refugees. I saw them. From Rome, Gaspard. Magdred.”

“I don’t know,” Caspar answered uneasily.

“What did Hubert say?” she insisted, undeterred.

“Not to speak of it,” Ferdinand interjected flatly. Caspar cast him an appreciative glance. It made him sicker, but what of it? Everything was just a mouthful of antimony, anymore. “It’s understood. I’ll ready the cavalry. Tell the Emperor that her vanguard will be happy to forge the path ahead posthaste.”

Caspar nodded. “Good. Thank you. Is that everything? I need to find Petra and give her the update, too.”

“That’s fine, Caspar,” Ferdinand agreed, smiling thinly at Caspar’s eagerness to carry on, as if he’d been tasked to buy apples instead of spreading conspiracy among their rank. “Thank you. Do carry on.”

Caspar nodded and jolted forward to resume his feverish dash across the camp. Dorothea remained behind, spearing Ferdinand in place with a harrowed stare.

“What did he mean by that?” she asked him, words whispered. Ferdinand thought about all of the stories about knights he’d read as a little boy. They’d fought dragons, and men in black plate, and cruel sorcerers who’d blasphemed against their faith. No matter their villain, there would always come a time when the knight faced a moment like this: reaffirming the sanctity of their mission, even in spite of apparent defeat. Gods, he’d read so many of them. And what had any of them meant? How different were those storybooks from his ruined, ancient name? They were all just varnish, weren’t they, slicked thickly over worm-eaten wood?

Ferdinand painted a fresh smile across his lips and turned to face Dorothea again. “We’re very nearly done,” he told her cheerily. “The final battle, Dorothea. Surely the Emperor will see us through. Do not worry. My men and I will open the gates of Fhirdiad to you. Think of how the people will cheer when they see that the war has finally come to an end. We can brush away this last bit of ugliness, and finally set everything right.”

“Ferdinand...” Dorothea said. She looked sad and strangely shrunken. He’d never seen her in such a state before. It made him feel as though she’d cleaved him in two. Ferdinand gritted his teeth into another wide smile and did his best to endure it.

“Have faith,” he insisted. “Be cautious,” he added, and not nearly as desperately as he wished to voice the words. “Let us bring an end to it, and find comfort in our cause.”

She looked away. Good. She’d always hated that sort of prattle. Ferdinand seized the opportunity to bow and take his leave. He walked with broad, quick strides to the far edge of their encampment. Six steps farther brought him under the ancient oaks that surrounded them. He stumbled over their roots, nearly toppling to his knees before catching himself with his fingers splayed against a tree trunk. He spat a mouthful of thick saliva between his boots and then another. His shoulders trembled as he retched. Finally, he managed to be sick. The bile burned his throat and filled his mouth with bitterness. Good. It was proper recompense for what he’d done, for the lies that he always seemed forced to tell. _A hole_ , he thought to himself wearily. _I’m buried in a hole_. If only he could stop digging.

* * *

The rain caught them at Tailtean. It turned the plains into a mire. He’d cursed it when it’d sucked at his stallion’s hooves, and had been convinced that it was the harbinger of their ill fate when he’d been tossed from his saddle, and had rolled both of his ankles in the muck as he’d struggled to keep himself from being crushed. He’d thought bitterly about those dark thunderheads even after they’d won the battle. Lamented them, when Linhardt worried over him in a crowded tent in order to fix his limp, and sent him off to find a new horse for their final advance on Fhirdiad. Gods help him, but Ferdinand could have written a dirge about those fat raindrops. Sixteen stanzas alone about how much he’d hated them. 

He was desperate for them now. Fhirdiad was on fire. He wasn’t quite certain how. The city was built from old, proud stone, and yet it was aflame. Perhaps in the morning, if they survived that long, they’d find the capital melted into grey currents flowing down the boulevards. He and his men had been forced to dismount at the city gates, less the fearsome vanguard of a conqueror than a terrified rabble of clattering soldiers stumbling through alleyways and collapsed avenues. There were bodies in the ruins. None of them wore imperial red. What hell was this? Had their victory over Dimitri Blaiddyd been a fever dream? Were those embers ceaselessly crackling against Ferdinand’s armor in fact the pricking beaks of carrion birds as they feasted on him back in Tailtean?

It didn’t matter. Even if he was a master over dreamed demons, he still owed his men their command. He ran ahead of them, desperate to find the streets to walk that wouldn’t melt their boots to the cobbles and trap them while the buildings above them tumbled apart. He had to chew the air to breathe it. It tasted like ash and acrid ruin. His eyes burned from it, long blinded by tears that he couldn’t possibly quell. Better that Fhirdiad remained a mosaic of black and grey. He didn’t want to remember the sight of it, not even if remembering only meant the day ahead.

“Here,” he croaked, stumbling closer to a line of warehouses left so far untouched by the flames. “Quickly.”

They would make no further advance until the fires shifted or eased, starved. Better to find some respite from the burning air, at least until the warehouses caught fire as well. His men understood his order well enough. They shuffled and filed past him to seek shelter. Ferdinand remained at the door, hunched against the inferno as he watched the smoke for sign of either allies meant to lead them to safer ground, or the enemy whom they’d been tasked to quell.

By some gracious luck, it was the former who came for them first. The fire sizzled and snapped as it was split by great conjured hunks of ice. A small contingent of mages cowered beneath the dripping blue monolith, looking bedraggled in their scorched robes. If he’d not already been weeping from the smoke, Ferdinand would have wept again at the sight of Dorothea at the fore. She cast the image of a proper heroine: arm outstretched as she followed the path Ferdinand had led to find a place for her people to hide, her eyes bold emeralds in the dark red wash of everything else. He wondered if the scene would be replicated later, daubed with oils onto a canvas, danced across a stage, perhaps hidden in the sounds of plucked strings and woeful horns. It was certainly grand. He’d dreamed about these sorts of things, once. And yet all he could muster when he saw her was a strained, pitiful _why_.

“Ferdinand,” Dorothea gasped once she’d jogged close enough to recognize him. It was far more likely that she’d recognized his armor, he realized. Like hers, his face must have been a sooty mess.

“Are you alright?” he managed. The inferno ripped the words from his lungs like a windstorm. She nodded, cupping her hand against her face to shield herself against the wild whip of her loose hair. “Have you any casualties?”

“Four,” Dorothea answered grimly. She turned at the heel to signal for her mages to slip into the warehouse. They slunk past them with bowed heads. Ferdinand wondered if this was really what victors looked like when they won a war. “And you?”

“None, gods help us,” Ferdinand barked over the fire’s roar. He jerked his chin over his shoulder to signal the open door, and could only hope that Dorothea would be graceful enough to forgive him for his brusqueness. “Come seek shelter.”

“And leave you alone to play guard?” Dorothea challenged. She sidled beside him, arms crossed as she dared him to disagree. Ferdinand felt his lips slipping into a smile. “Have you heard news from the others?”

“No,” Ferdinand replied. “We are stranded.”

He glanced over at Dorothea. Her eyes were set on the ruin before them, red-rimmed, cheeks streaked down the middle with clean, pink tracks. The perfect wave of her hair had fizzled into a fray in the heat, and had tangled and matted at the ends. Her robes were singed and torn at the hem.

Ferdinand ached. What he would give to be transformed suddenly into a magician: not like her, but impossibly so, able to press her between his palms and magic her away. She would hate him for it, spoiling her victory. He was more than willing to shoulder her disfavor, if only it meant that he could send her to a calm, cool, green place far, far away.

“It will be over soon,” he reassured her. “Our cause is just. Our force is strong. We must simply stand steadfast.”

She nodded, although she didn’t break her forward stare. They were both silent for a moment. Fhirdiad’s furnace bellowed hungrily.

“There.” Dorothea was the one to break. She jolted, hand raised as she signaled to a dark spot against the roofline. “What’s that?”

Ferdinand gripped his lance tight. “Show me. Where?”

The shadow answered for them both. A smeared, oily light suddenly winked to life in the haze. Ferdinand’s teeth chattered.

“Out!” he roared. “Out into the street! Hurry!”

Magic crackled to life in Dorothea’s palms. Her jaw was set tight, eyes narrowed resolutely. Surely she’d seen those hulking golems when she’d entered into the city at the vanguard’s heels. There would be no mercy for those trapped in a warehouse crushed by their inhuman lances.

The men obeyed Ferdinand’s orders. He rushed them through the doorway and pointed at a distant crossroad with the point of his spear. “Form a defensive circle. Armored units at the fore!”

The smell of petrichor filled his nostrils as Dorothea’s spell came to life. He watched, transfixed, as great bolts of heavenly light soared downwards from the blackened clouds. Her magic slipped against the golem’s barrier like water beading on glass. She turned to Ferdinand, sickly pale beneath the grime, her lips parted in a question she dared not speak aloud.

“I don’t know,” he admitted to her grimly. A line of burning buildings stood between them and the golem. There was no path ahead for his men to charge forward and break the creature’s barrier. No doubt that had been Rhea’s terrible plan. Ferdinand fought the instinct to run backwards into the doomed guard of the warehouse. He squared his shoulders instead. It was for that reason that he was brandishing his lance futilely forward when the golem’s spell crashed through the charcoal buildings opposite them and then screamed downwards towards the street below.

 _Even in death_ , he thought to himself miserably, powerless to stop the way the world had suddenly blanched into a hissing gasp of too-loud noise: _looking like a fool_. A knight armed with tinsel and a paper sword, swinging at a dragon. He tumbled backwards. Deeper, deeper, into the hole.

* * *

Ferdinand was both disappointed and relieved to discover that dying did not include an operatic review of his life long lived before. He did not see flashes of his most formative moments as he fell into the dark nothingness of his end. Surely there were some moments upon which he would have enjoyed to reminisce, but for the most part it was better not to remember how little he’d accomplished. What good would memories of endless hours spent bowed before tutors and trainers serve him? He could only hope that he would be given the opportunity to try again. He prayed to be born as a farmer’s babe, crestless, a second son. 

Nothing came for him for awhile. Finally, after he’d started to forget the sound of his own thoughts, the black around him dulled into slate greys and speckled silver. He felt the cool press of something soft against his brow. Now that he was dead, and no longer an Aegir, he allowed himself the transgression of leaning towards it selfishly. How lovely it felt, like unworn silk slipped around his temples, down his cheeks. It pressed against the pulse point in his throat. He was desperate to swallow it and quench the dry ruin of his throat.

“Ferdinand,” a voice, melodic, whispered. What a beautiful voice. How splendid it was to hear it call his name. “Ferdinand, please.”

He listened greedily to the voice’s echoing plea. What a thing, to be wanted like that. What a pleasure it would have been.

“Ferdie. Wake up.”

How could he disobey? He readied himself for his next life and mustered the strength to open his eyes. An ugly world looked back at him. It made the breath catch in his lungs. Did he really deserve it? Black, broken rafters; smoke; pain? Gods, what had he done to deserve it? What a damned fool he’d been!

“Ferdinand!”

A fallen angel, surely. A low groan gathered in his throat at the sight of her, bruised and bloodied and divine. He’d listened to enough sermons warning against hell to recognize it now. Maybe he’d killed enough to earn his place here. _Oh, Edelgard. Look what we’ve done._

“Look here. Look at me.” Green eyes. “There you are.”

A ruthless wave crashed over him and brought him back to life.

“Dorothea,” he breathed. Dorothea smiled shakily. She pressed a cool palm against his cheek.

“There you are,” she sighed, “you stubborn bastard.”

He would have simpered some toothless retort at her in his past life, but now he could hardly manage the task of breathing without crying out. She bowed closer over him, smoothing over his brow with a trembling hand.

“Now, listen to me,” she ordered him. Her words were stern, but the quaver of her voice betrayed her. “You’re alive. Don’t you dare call me a saint, or anything like that. The golem— you remember?” Ferdinand swallowed and nudged his chin in an effort to nod. The corners of Dorothea’s lips trembled. She attempted another reassuring smile. “The blast knocked us into the warehouse, and dropped the whole damned thing on top of us. Don’t,” she interjected when he stiffened and pursed his lips to reply. “It was only the two of us. I’ve heard voices outside. Not loud enough to make them out, but I think they’re ours. Your men will survive an afternoon without you lording over them.”

Ferdinand huffed his protest. Her smile tightened into a more honest shape.

“Just an afternoon,” she added. “But in the meantime you mustn’t move.”

Predicting what she’d say next, he struggled to peek over the bridge of his nose at the rest of his body below it. He was laid across the rubble, prone, his hands folded over his chest. There was something off about the angle of his legs. All of him was in agony, so it seemed not worth the effort to try to isolate just which part of him ached the worst.

“It’s alright,” Dorothea insisted. She swept her fingers down his brow, breaking his gaze under the protection of her palm for a moment before she carried on to worry over his dented breastplate. “You’ll be alright. I... I’ve... there was some bleeding, and so you might feel a bit...faint. But I’m not...” She paused, pinching the swollen bruise of her lower lip between her teeth while she faltered. “I was never very good at faith magic. We’ll need to wait for help.”

“Are you hurt?” Ferdinand replied. His voice was hoarse and ugly. He winced at the sound. She did as well, although she was quick to hide it.

“No,” she said, although he could see well enough that it was a lie.

“Your head,” he insisted. She reached quickly for the bloodied spot peeking from her hairline.

“Oh, now, don’t worry over that. I’ve had worse scrapes.”

“Can you stand?” he asked.

“Yes,” she snapped defensively, as if he’d asked her if she could read. He smiled.

“Go on, then.” He prayed that the rhetoric which he’d once mastered would pay for the price of convincing her to leave him behind using far simpler words now. “I’ll—”

“Absolutely not.”

“It isn’t safe.”

“Is that supposed to be convincing?” Dorothea huffed. “If it isn’t safe for me to stay here, why would I leave you behind?”

Ferdinand supposed she had a point, loathe as he was to agree with it. His eyes settled on her split lip and the yellow bruises on her jaw.

“Forgive me, Dorothea, but sometimes I do wish you would simply listen to me,” he admitted finally. She startled, staring at him for a silent, incredulous moment before she began to laugh. Her shoulders shook from it. There were tears in her eyes when she looked at him again. He felt his own watering, too.

“Help us all if I started to do something like that,” she drawled. Her fingers slipped from his armor to fiddle with a curled end of his hair. “Are you... I suppose you must feel rotten, but is there anything worse than the rest? I can manage simple healing spells, you know.”

“No,” he answered quickly. Dorothea frowned.

“It’ll help. Tell me.”

 _You’re exhausted_ , he could have answered. It was so easy to read, the way she was slumped against him, how her lashes flickered when she glanced across the cramped corner they’d been trapped within. Her fingers were trembling and cold. Ferdinand had heard of mages who’d died of exhaustion in moments like this. He’d rather burn alive than let that happen. 

“Honestly, I feel quite alright,” he said. Dorothea snorted and shook her head. “Although I don’t suppose you would happen to have something to drink?”

“No,” she replied woefully.“I’m sorry, Ferdie.”

That nickname again. It was far better than a jug of fresh water. Ferdinand allowed himself to smile.

“I hardly blame you for tearing down a building,” he reassured her, his eyes tracing the crooked beams that had tumbled not so far above their heads, “although I do imagine the poor merchants who made use of it might have a different idea.”

Dorothea laughed again. She sniffed afterwards, rubbing at her nose with the dirtied hem of her sleeve. “Yes, well, I’ll let you speak with them. You were always good at that sort of thing.”

“I suppose I was.”

Silence lulled between them. It was strange to hear it after so many hours spent deafened by the roaring fire outside. Ferdinand supposed that it must have been strangled. Certainly otherwise they would have long ago been turned to cinders. He wondered if that meant that they’d won the war. He couldn’t help but think how suitable it would be, if that were the case: for Edelgard to claim her victory inside an ancient throne room while he was trapped, helpless and useless, in a pile of broken timber in the capital’s slums.

“...Say,” Dorothea interrupted. Ferdinand tore himself reluctantly from his grim daydreaming. “Did you have a pet? As a child? Not one of your horses.”

“A pet?” he echoed incredulously. Dorothea offered him a wavering smile. Ah. She was distracting him. Yes. He’d been taught to do the same, once. How much sweeter it seemed coming from her lips than it had from Byleth’s lessons. _Casualty management_ , they’d called it then.

“I did,” he revealed. The words tangled in his throat. It was starting to become more difficult to voice them. He endeavored on. If there was one thing he was peerless at, it was speaking about himself. He’d manage that, at least. “A spaniel. When I was a little boy. It was a gift made to my father. To be frank with you, I’d thought he’d simply sell it off, but he actually gave it to me. It was male. My father named it Duke,” he added, and to the crinkle of Dorothea’s nose, well earned by the terrible name, “but I called him Lancelot when Father wasn’t listening.”

“I don’t know what else I expected,” Dorothea laughed. “That’s all so very like you.”

“Is it?” Ferdinand took advantage of Dorothea’s bowed head to grimace at the strange numbness building in his legs before he pulled on another smile. “He was a good friend, sweet Lancelot. I must admit that he was most likely the only one I had, in truth. If you were to have met me then, I fear you would have called me quite insufferable. Although I do suppose I was not so different at the academy.”

“You were rather difficult,” Dorothea admitted coyly. “Sometimes I’d hear you through the walls, going on and on about your pedigree.”

“Much like Lancelot,” Ferdinand contended, “it was a very good pedigree.”

Dorothea smiled warmly. Ferdinand felt his heart flip in his chest. “Did you have one?” he asked her. “A fair, furry companion?”

“A kitten,” she revealed. “During my days with the Mittlefrank. I named her Ophelia. She was a sweet little creature— white as snow, like a pillow-full of down feathers. Naughty, too. They’d always find her running through the rigging. Once she turned one of my gowns to tatters. It was so beautiful— sequins across the bodice, and pearls. Eyelash lace! Poor Ophelia lived in a basket backstage after that.” Dorothea giggled. “What a time that was, don’t you think? Worrying over something as simple as torn gowns?”

“You’ll have plenty of time to worry over gowns again, Dorothea,” he said. His tongue felt thick and clumsy in his mouth.

“I suppose,” she sighed. “I don’t believe a word of what you said before, by the way. That bit about Lancelot and your friends. I’ve always imagined you to be the star of Enbarr. You must have been a court darling as a little boy.”

“Darling?” Ferdinand scoffed. “I was my father’s protege. He was only well liked because there was something to gain in liking him. I couldn’t offer the same reward as a boy in stockings, let me assure you. I was...Sometimes, Dorothea, sometimes...” He paused. It was difficult to find the right words. They seemed important, whatever they were. “Sometimes I wish I could do it all over. That I could have turned myself into a man I could respect, instead of the one my father built for me. He was so _small_ , and here I’ve gone and shoved myself into his shadow. What a pity, don’t you think?”

Dorothea frowned. Her eyes were bright in the gloom. “I don’t think you’re anything like your father, Ferdinand.”

“That’s gracious of you,” he laughed. The breath wheezed in his lungs. He could feel it burbling in the back of his throat. “If you wouldn’t mind, in the days ahead, how lovely it would be if you said so, on those rare occasions when you might be asked.”

“You can defend yourself,” she braced.

“Oh, now... I don’t think so,” he sighed, peeling back one of his hands to eye the red slick spread across his gauntlet with disappointment. “I think I’ve done my share of that.”

“Ferdinand,” she insisted, choked.

“Do you know... This might be silly, but humor me, won’t you?” he asked her. She nodded, sniffling again. “I know we’re taught to believe in the goddess. It’s a noble thing. Faith, virtue— justice, even. And yet I must admit I very rarely listened to the lessons. So much of it seemed so... _complicated_. But when I was a boy, I saw her. Sothis. In the body of a girl, singing in a fountain. I was... dumbfounded by it. Frightened, even. Something so pure, so beautiful.” Dorothea made a small, strangled sound. Ferdinand endeavored on. “I’m not frightened of her now. How lovely it was. How lovely it will be. Don’t cry,” he begged her, desperate to brush away the tears that had gathered to spill from her lashes. His hands were like lead weights against his chest. “Don’t cry for me.”

“Ferdinand, _don’t_ ,” she sobbed.

He had no answer for her. There were promises, of course, but he’d not earned the right to speak them to her. Perhaps they were better left unsaid. The dark came back for him regardless. He relented to it. Felt soil between his fingers, beneath his palms. He dug in his grip and began to climb.


	2. Honey Flow

Dorothea had daydreamed for years about winning the war. It’d seemed unlucky to fixate on something so tremendous, but some nights— most nights—dreaming about it had been the only way that she could fall asleep. She’d get drunk after they won, she’d decided. Not the kind of drunk that soldiers chased when they were fighting, but the unguarded sort that was only possible once they didn’t have anything to fight anymore. She’d sing in the streets, and dance, and laze away the headachy morning after without worrying about being left behind. She’d ride to Enbarr, and eat the fry bread sold fresh and steaming from street corner stalls. Her favorites were the ones dusted with sugar and dripping with honey. She’d eat as many of them as she wanted, and then she’d stroll the boulevards with sticky fingers, not bothering with feeling guilty about a single bit of it. Maybe she’d make good on Petra’s many invitations and fly to Brigid. Sleep away her afternoons under the sun. Eat a coconut, whatever that was. Swim. 

She’d had a dozen other fanciful ideas as well, but none of them had been even marginally related to the task of worrying over the bedpans arranged beneath Ferdinand von Aegir’s sickbed. As it so happened, however, they had won the war; and here Dorothea found herself three days after Fhirdiad had finally fallen, in a small room requisitioned inside the poor dead Blaiddyds’ palace, her hair unwashed and plaited into a crooked braid, face still a motley of purple and yellow bruises, hands on her hips as she stared down an unimpressed nurse dressed in a stained apron and mismatched shoes.

“You need to empty them!” Dorothea snapped. “Immediately, not just when they’ve had the chance to ripen into wine!”

“Missus, I’ve more important things to do than juggle bedpans.”

“Well if not you, then _someone_ , surely!”

The nurse sighed and wiped her hands on her apron. “And who would you suggest? Young boys from all over are coming here with missing fingers and rotten limbs that should’ve been healed six days ago. Now I’ve got to cut them from them, and if I don’t, who? Just yesterday a Gideon girl was at my doorstep, birthin’ twins! I do not have time for bedpans. Not for you, not for your duke, not for the Emperor of all bloody Fodlan!”

“Fine! Then I suppose I’ll just have to do it myself!” Dorothea shouted at the nurse’s back as the woman stomped out into the hall. The door slammed behind her. At least they’d bewitched Ferdinand asleep. No doubt he would have woken otherwise, and what a trial that would’ve been. It was difficult enough to rouse him long enough to take his meals and fill the damned bedpans.

Grumbling, Dorothea hiked her sleeves to her elbows and stalked to the singular window at the far end of the room. It was a minor guest room undeserving of a duke, newly-named or otherwise, but at least it had a pretty view. Dorothea eyed the little garden below. It was empty except for peonies and the first scraggly roses of the season. Good. She pushed open the window panes and turned on her heel. Her skirts rustled as she knelt to quickly snatch the pans from beneath the bed. She walked them as urgently as possible to the window before unceremoniously dumping them out.

There. That wasn’t how the Blaiddyds did it, most likely, but it was certainly the preferred method in the slums where little Arnaults grew.

“Honestly,” she sighed, tossing the pans back into place before she collapsed into the chair at Ferdinand’s beside. What a fit he would’ve thrown to see her doing such a thing. He’d have a few choice words for the nurse, too, there was no question about that. Not that it was her fault, really. She really _was_ overworked. Dorothea sighed again and smoothed a few of the many wrinkles spread across her lap. Fhirdiad was full of the wounded. At first, dying men like Ferdinand had taken precedent. Linhardt had seen to him personally. Although the mage’s bedside manner was not much improved from the nurse’s, he’d been a far more skilled hand at piecing Ferdinand together again.

Linhardt had also been quite frank in explaining how Dorothea’s clumsy faith magic had both saved Ferdinand and nearly killed him. _Look_ , Linhardt had exclaimed, using handfuls of unearthly light to illuminate Ferdinand’s poor, hunched back; _you’ve set the vertebrae wrong—_ all of them, _Dorothea_. But how was she supposed to know about vertebrae? The only thing that’d been on her mind when she’d unburied Ferdinand from the rubble in that horrible warehouse had been that he’d looked like a crushed bird, and that she’d been desperate enough to draw water from a stone in order to help him.

They broke his spine a second time in order to bring him back to life. Dorothea had fainted as soon as they’d begun. No war could have prepared her for that. They’d drug her off to a far corner and carried on in snapping and resetting Ferdinand’s crushed ribs and twisted legs as well. By the time she’d finally come to, he’d already been wrapped like a gift from toe to crown in bandages and had been spelled into a deep slumber. _He asked after you_ , Linhardt had teased her, coy even during grim moments like that. _What did you do to him?_ was all that she managed to throw back at him.

As it turned out, healing a man for a second time was far more difficult than doing it correctly on the first attempt. Something about building a resistance, Linhardt told her, but she’d been too exhausted to really understand what he’d said. What she did learn was that Ferdinand would be sedated for at least a week, until the agony of living in a broken body had subsided enough for him to manage staying awake. Then he would be bed-bound for another month ( _at a minimum_ , Linhardt had specified, although she hadn’t been so keen to trust him, him being so fond of a bed himself), and would have a limp for six, if not longer. _He’ll be lucky to walk at all_ , Linhardt had sniffed when Dorothea had contended just how miserable Ferdinand would be sedentary and sequestered.

 _He’s lucky to be alive_ , is what Linhardt left unsaid. Well, to hell with it, anyway. They were all lucky to be alive. The good news was that Ferdinand was an easy patient, now that he wasn’t dying anymore. Linhardt had sent Dorothea away the day before, telling her the same. She’d have nothing to do in his little room other than to watch the mornings darken into nights.

But here she was all the same, in sour spirits, lucky to have not spilled Aegir piss on a dress she hadn’t changed in days. To be honest, she wasn’t certain where else to go, let alone what to do with herself. She didn’t know the palace like the others did, themselves once unruly noble guests when they’d been children of a different time. Edelgard and Hubert had far more important things to do than to assign her a room and a list of duties to perform. She’d slept that first night at Ferdinand’s bedside, convinced that she’d be the only one to watch him die, and when he’d lived into the morning after she’d found it difficult to break the habit. Besides, it was daunting to sleep alone in one’s own quarters in a place like that. Certainly the palace was haunted. Dimitri had only been dead for a month.

A knock at the door. Dorothea shoved down her sleeves and cast a cursory glance across herself to make certain that nothing was too outlandishly out of place. Not that anyone would mistaken her for a diva given the pitiful state of her affairs, but she could at least ensure that her bodice was properly laced before she stood and quickly skirted across the room to greet whomever had knocked. No point in ruining her reputation beyond whatever the nurses were calling her. _Harpy_ , if she was lucky. She smirked and pulled open the door.

“H-hello,” a slender, girlish figure greeted her. The creature was all blue eyes, pink cheeks, and golden ringlets cropped soldier-short at the temple. Familiar as she’d become with the exhausted nursing staff, Dorothea was positively dumbfounded by the sight of her in all of her fresh, well-rested splendor. The young woman seemed similarly petrified.

“Ah,” the girl stuttered, turning an even more flattering shade of rose quartz. “Forgive me. I was— Miss Dorinda said— I was...” Dorothea’s eyes dipped to the humble bouquet of daisies gripped in the girl’s arms. “...is General Aegir...?”

Something fisted tight deep inside Dorothea’s chest. Well, what of it? Ferdinand was a man, wasn’t he, full of red blood and everything else? She knew well enough herself that good breeding and table manners had nothing to do with chastity. Out of all the noble men with whom she’d had the displeasure of being acquainted before, none of them would have refused the affections of a young, voluptuous girl with blue eyes and golden hair. Dorothea forced herself to smile and stepped aside to clear the sight line between the girl and Ferdinand’s bed.

“Yes,” she told her. “He’s here. He’s sleeping,” she added, whispering the words, as if Ferdinand hadn’t slumbered blissfully throughout all of her shouting before. The girl’s lips quivered. “But knowing Ferdinand, he’s no doubt keeping tabs on everything that’s being said. Would you like to come in and say hello?”

The girl’s throat bobbed. She glanced at her toes. There were freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose. Dorothea couldn’t help but admit that they were charming, just like her thick lashes and the rosy bow of her pouting lips. She was dressed in a simple muslin dress, but it suited her, somehow. It was easy to imagine her knelt piously at Ferdinand’s beside— easier than Dorothea, at least, who’d done far less kneeling than pacing and angry yelling.

“Only if it wouldn’t be a bother,” the girl peeped. 

“Of course not,” Dorothea masterfully replied. The nape of her neck grow hot. She cleared her throat and glanced out the open window as the girl took a tentative step inside. “Would you like me to give you some privacy?”

“Privacy?” The girl’s face filled with a red blush, starting from her doll-like chin and spreading upwards into her heart-shaped hairline. “O-oh no, that isn’t— it isn’t— I don’t think that would be right.”

Dorothea smirked. She supposed she had a point. Ferdinand would’ve been beside himself over an impropriety like that. As if he could threaten the girl’s reputation by snoring if she got too close. Dorothea looked over at him. The girl did as well. She heard her suck in a sharp breath.

“Oh,” the girl whimpered. The paper wrapped around the bouquet crinkled as she hugged it tight. She skipped a few steps closer to the bed before cowering backwards, as if frightened by the sight. Dorothea was startled when she looked over her shoulder at her with teary eyes. “Oh, he’ll be alright, won’t he? He has to be alright.”

The pettiness that Dorothea had been so desperate to ignore melted away into aching pity. She danced forward to draw the girl against her chest. The girl nearly collapsed against her, her shoulders trembling as she buried her nose against Dorothea’s neck. _It’s not that bad_ , she wanted to chide her, _chin up, sweetheart_. But as she looked over her curls at the bed, she saw what the girl must have seen: a man who had always filled every room he was within, suddenly easy to overlook entirely. Even the obnoxious red of his hair seemed colorless against his pillow.

“He always made sure that I was al-alright,” the girl hiccuped. “All of us. Why did it ha-happen like this?”

“Now, now,” Dorothea soothed, rubbing wide circles against the girl’s back. “This is just the sort of thing that comes with a victory, hm? General Aegir was proud to play his part.” _General Aegir_. The words felt strange on her tongue. She’d never called him that. It’d always seemed like such an oversized title. How odd it was to consider that he’d been that sort of giant to other people, and from the very start. “The healers have done a fine job. I’ve kept watch over them myself.”

Dorothea stepped back a pace, holding the girl by the shoulders to look her in the eye. “In a month our proud general will be back in the saddle again. In the meantime, I’m certain that he’ll be so pleased to hear that you’ve paid him a visit. What’s your name? I’ll tell him, as soon as he’s awake.”

“M-Mildred. Mildred, from Rusalka.” Mildred turned pink again. “I don’t... I don’t think he’ll know me by name, my lady. That isn’t the important part, just that I... He always saw to it that I was alright. Even with everything else, our company being large as it is, he... He’d always see to it that I was treated well.I’m an archer, my lady. Er, the archer,” she amended bashfully. Dorothea understood why. She’d never heard of an archer serving in a vanguard before. “That’s how he’ll know me. It’s just as well if he doesn’t. Just that I’d hoped that he would know that we’re all thinking of him.”

“Thank you, Mildred,” Dorothea replied. She smiled, this time earnestly, and released the girl to gesture at the bouquet forgotten in her arms. “Here. How lovely those are. I have it on good authority that General Aegir is very fond of summer flowers. I’ll find a vase for them, and make certain that they’re the first thing he sees when he wakes.”

“Oh. Thank you, my lady,” Mildred sighed. She offered Dorothea the flowers before dragging her sleeve across her eyes. “Thank you. You’ve been so kind. What a mess I am.”

“You’ve found yourself good company,” Dorothea countered, nodding at the ugly state of her own dress. “Go on, then. Surely you have plenty of other things to do. If you wish to visit General Aegir when he’s fitter, I’m certain that he would welcome you.”

“Yes, my lady,” Mildred answered. She lurched forward in a stiff, awkward bow. “Thank you.”

“Good day, sweet girl.”

“My lady,” Mildred echoed, stepping eagerly on her back step to make a quick retreat to the door. “Good day to you.”

Her eyes darted a final time in Ferdinand’s direction before, pink cheeked once more, she disappeared into the hall. Dorothea smirked and sighed once she’d gone, shaking her head while she wandered the room to hunt for a place to put Mildred’s flowers. Surely no one had brought humble daises to the royal palace before. It seemed fitting, somehow. Dorothea truly did think that Ferdinand would like them. She arranged them carefully in a dusty vase scavenged from the bottom shelf of an old credenza and set them beside the little table at his bedside.

* * *

Dorothea had adopted the task of feeding Ferdinand as well. There seemed no other option for it. The nurses shoveled his meals at him, as if they were in a race with the other invalids down the hall. He was only conscious for long enough to eat. It seemed cruel to make that rare, lucid moment so chaotic. And besides, he’d always been a man of etiquette. If they hadn’t fought a war, and therefore been accustomed to taking their meals at a campfire, she imagined that the endless soups and porridges would have been the first spread of his life served with only a singular piece of cutlery at his disposal. She could offer him some minor dignity, at the very least.

So she talked the nurses into teaching her the nullification spell that would reverse Ferdinand’s hypnosis. Testing it first on a potted ficus— having always excelled at black magic, and never so much its kinder cousin—Dorothea quickly became accustomed to the shock of waking him. He did it in the same manner each time: a sharp breath through the nose, then gasped out quickly from his mouth; his eyes snapping open, wide, wild, darting across the four corners of the room. Dorothea would observe while he remembered who he was, and where, and why. It was mesmerizing to watch him calm himself. She imagined that no other patient was in disposal of his restraint. With three quick, bracing breaths he’d set his brows in line and smooth his lips’ terrified snarl, donning a genteel mask that very nearly covered his agony.

Next he would glance sideways at his bedside to seek out who had woken him. Each time that he found Dorothea sitting there, his mouth would quirk into a little smile and his cheeks would lose some of their horrible pallor. It always made her feel suddenly warm and terribly self conscious. Like clockwork, she’d stir whatever sad bowl of gruel awaited him and would do her best to ignore it.

“Good evening, Dorothea,” he said to her that night, no doubt gauging the proper welcome from the dark shadows dimming the room. His voice was thin and strained, but as always he was insufferably polite.

“Good evening, Ferdie,” she replied. His eyes crinkled with a smile. She stirred the mushy bowl of buckwheat perched in her lap. “How are you feeling today?”

“Splendid,” Ferdinand fibbed. “And you? How is your head?”

“My head has been healed for three days, Ferdie,” she drawled. “No one can do anything good for it now.” She dipped the spoon and scraped the back against the rim of the bowl before brandishing it at him. “Hungry?”

“I suppose it is the hour.” He eyed the spoonful uneasily. To be fair, her meals hadn’t been much better. Fhirdiad had been besieged before they’d taken it, and their own rations had been running thin after five years spent afield. They were lucky for buckwheat.

“Good lad,” she teased. “Here you are, then.”

He’d already spent day two of his recovery protesting her role as nursemaid. _Surely you have more pressing matters to attend to_ , he’d insisted, despondent at the idea of her waiting on him. _And who are you to tell me what to do_ , she’d replied. He’d either been impressed by what she’d said or overwhelmed by the pain of whatever Linhardt had done to him. In either case, the result was, to her at least, satisfactory: he’d listened to her. He was downright obedient now.

“By the way,” she told him in between spoonfuls three and four, “a woman came to see you today. A member of your battalion. She said she was an archer.”

Ferdinand swallowed his next mouthful before he stilled, shoulders stiffening slightly as he looked up at her. “Mildred? Was she from Rusalka?”

“The very same,” Dorothea confirmed, surprised. Ferdinand closed his eyes and sighed.

“So she is alright, then? How did she look?”

“In one piece,” Dorothea told him, “if a little weepy.” 

“Thank the gods,” Ferdinand breathed. “The poor girl. With everything, I’d feared that... Well, no matter,” he amended, gritting his jaw. He glanced over at her afterwards, peeking bashfully from beneath his lashes. “She had no business in the battalion. I told her the same, of course, and at the very moment in which she insisted that she enlist. Her brother was a soldier. He rode on Garreg Mach and died there, most unfortunately,” he sighed. “And so our Mildred, sixteen years of age, decided to take up the mantle herself. I told her that I wouldn’t allow her mother to bury both of her children. Refused her enlistment outright. Six days later, and who do I see afield?”

“She was determined,” Dorothea suggested. Ferdinand didn’t roll his eyes, being the sort of man he was, but he did something very nearly akin to it before carrying on.

“She was naive,” he corrected her. “But so was I, to think that I could simply convince her to hurry home. So I put her on a horse and told the men to watch over her. I saw to it that they gave her no trouble, but to be honest with you, so many of them are just boys themselves. They all left a sister behind. If anything, they were better for having her around.” He paused, his lips twitching into a sideways smirk. “I must also admit that she is a terrifying shot. The hero of Arianrhod, really.”

Dorothea laughed. “Who would have thought?”

“And so it is for any of us. Was, at least,” Ferdinand replied. “As if Linhardt was ever suited for something so strenuous as war-making.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Dorothea agreed, grinning. She set aside Ferdinand’s empty bowl and leaned forward to wipe away a smudge of grease from the corner of his lips. “Some would even say that silly divas would find themselves rather misplaced,” she added slyly.

“Yes,” Ferdinand agreed, suddenly serious. “You deserve a far gentler world than the one we have been given to fight over.”

“Oh,” Dorothea stuttered, startled, “enough of that.”

Ferdinand’s skin had started to turn slick and clammy. No matter how talented he was at seeming unaffected, Dorothea knew the signs of when his resilience had faltered. She leaned forward to settle her palm over his over-warm brow.

“Let’s discuss it more in the morning,” she added, this time soothingly. He huffed a stubborn breath against her wrist, but didn’t disagree.

“Goodnight, Dorothea,” he said instead. She stared hotly at the wall opposite the bed and forced herself to think about runes.

“Goodnight,” she told him, casting the sleeping spell as she did. Ferdinand sighed out the breath that he must have been holding since he’d roused. His head bobbed bonelessly against her fingers as he fell quickly into a deep slumber. Dorothea combed back the hair plastered to his temples and smoothed her thumb over one of his auburn brows.

He looked so much younger when he slept. With his showy vocabulary, it was easy to forget that he was only twenty-four. What a strange life he’d lived, both privileged and ostracized, cruel and coddled. Maybe he wasn’t so different, really, from an urchin dressed in sequins and pearls— or daisies in a palace. A winter capital in flames. A gentler world, he’d said. She realized, growing lightheaded, that there would be little in it for her if she were forced to make her way through it as she was now: alone. 

* * *

“Dorothea.” 

On day eleven after the war, Dorothea made her second escape from Ferdinand’s room to wash her hair. It was a delight: soap, warm water, clean clothes. All of it had very nearly left her in a good mood. Damn her luck that when she’d left the baths, the first creature lying in wait for her at the turn of a corner was none other than Hubert. He looked as dark and foreboding as always, even burdened as he was with an armful of paperwork that looked better suited for a professor’s study than a palace’s halls.

“Hello, Hubert,” she greeted him dryly. “I do apologize, but I can’t say I was expecting you. No crows calling, you see, or ice gathering in the air.”

“It is a pleasure to see you as well,” he answered in an equally parched tone. Dorothea rolled her eyes as he settled into pace beside her. “It has been a long time since we last met.”

“Has it? I can’t say that I’ve noticed.”

“I suspect you’ve had much else in possession of your attention beyond recounting our time spent apart,” Hubert replied. “And yet the matters of a war do require some notice, and so I find myself seeking yours.”

“Get on with it, Hubert,” Dorothea sighed. “Does Edie need help with something?”

“Her Majesty the Emperor,” Hubert corrected icily. Dorothea shrugged.

“Her Majesty has never been so particular before,” she said. “Although I’m happy to oblige. How is Her Grace?” she added more earnestly, turning at the waist to look at Hubert directly.

“Her Majesty is busy, as one would expect given her responsibilities,” Hubert tutted. He paused, pale eyes studying Dorothea for a moment before he carried on. “It is challenging work,” he admittedly more quietly. “It would do her well to see you, if only so that she does not worry over you as well.”

A guilty pinch settled in Dorothea’s gut. “Of course,” she quickly answered. “I’m sorry, Hubie.” Hubert blanched at the nickname. “I should have come to her already.”

“You owe me no apology directly,” he replied. She heard him clear his throat. They stepped together down the hall. Hubert’s boots clacked against the floorboards. She listened to their sharp echo: one, two, one two. “...I understand that you’ve sent away the staff overseeing Aegir’s care.”

Her cheeks grew warm. She hid them beneath the dismissive flutter of her fingers. “They were brutes, Hubert. You know he needs a gentle hand.” Hubert hummed his agreement. “Besides, he doesn’t require much care at all. I don’t mind keeping track of his meals.”

“I imagine you are doing far more than collecting his dishes,” Hubert sighed. “In any case, that isn’t why I’ve asked. Our duke, how is... how does he fare?”

“Well,” Dorothea answered quickly. Hubert gave her a thin-lipped frown. She sighed. “He’s doing well enough. Linhardt was worried about him— worried in the way that Linhardt _worries_ , at least. But Ferdie’s shown some real improvement. Linhardt’s told me that he expects a full recovery. I don’t see why we shouldn’t be optimistic.”

Hubert nodded. “Good.” He set his eyes ahead. They rounded another corner before he began to shuffle through the things clutched in his arms. Dorothea stared at him in confusion when he suddenly shoved a parcel at her.

“I imagine that he is already aware that his title has been returned to him,” he huffed, “but if the news has not yet been shared with him, I would ask that you do so on Her Majesty’s behalf.”

Dorothea took the parcel from him and turned it between her hands. She could smell the sweet scent of tea leaves from inside the parchment.

“Duke Aegir has, in his infinite foolishness, somehow managed to make arrangements to send me... coffee beans,” Hubert mumbled. Dorothea was stupefied by the faintest hint of a flush coloring his cheeks. “I would also like you to order him to redirect his energy elsewhere. His recuperation is more important to the Empire than his commitment to such ridiculous fancies.”

Dorothea smiled. “I’ll tell him that you liked the coffee, Hubert.” She tapped the parcel against the tip of her nose and took in a breath, eyes closed. “Hm. This smells nice.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Hubert fibbed. He cleared his throat again. “One other matter,” he added before she’d had the opportunity to make an escape. “I imagine you, like many of our compatriots, are eager to leave Fhirdiad once your.... _obligations_ have been met. A formal announcement will be made once the timing is right, but in the meantime Her Majesty has requested that I inform you that you have been granted peerage.”

“Excuse me?” Dorothea stuttered.

“Viscountess,” Hubert explained dispassionately. “Perhaps not at the noblest heights of which I remember your interest during our days at Garreg Mach, but enough to grant you a yearly salary from Her Majesty’s generosity, and land, when it is doled out. I would recommend you name your preference now. Her Majesty will no doubt grant you priority in your selection. Gaspard, perhaps, or the western parcels of Myrddin,” he suggested, for once sounding helpful rather than simply vengeful. “The weather is mild. It would be easy land for a fledgling master like yourself to manage.”

“ _Fledgling_ ,” she echoed, still numb from his news.

“Well, it seemed a more polite word than the rest,” he quipped. “Congratulations, Viscountess Arnault,” he added, this time in a clipped tone that signaled that he’d come to the end of what he’d wished to share with her. “I do hope you will enjoy the quiet life our war has won for us.”

“Thank you, Hubert,” Dorothea replied. He nodded and turned crisply at the heels to leave her alone in the hall. She lingered, dumbstruck, picking at the tucked edges of the parcel of tea as she wondered just why it was that she’d always wanted, above all other things, a quiet, noble life. 

* * *

Ferdinand sighed. He flipped through one of the countless pamphlets scattered across his bed. Hummed with displeasure. Flipped backwards through it once again. Tapped his pen against his knuckle, making the tiny pieces inside it click and clack. Another sigh, this time through the nose. Dorothea gripped so tightly at her book (about princes, or something, who knows; she’d been reading it for hours and hadn’t been able to focus on so many lines as to turn a page herself) that she was surprised she didn’t rip it clean from its binding.

“Ferdinand,” she gritted through her teeth, “do be quiet.”

“Ridiculous,” Ferdinand countered. He wasn’t responding to her, of course, or at least not to what she’d said, but rather the diatribe that he’d silently been fuming over before she’d unwittingly lured him into discussion by opening her mouth. He wagged the pamphlet at her, his face skewed into a look of entreaty far better suited for a forum than his ever-present sickbed. “After everything, and all of it done with such care, this is the best that they can manage in order to usher in the very things that we have fought for?”

Dorothea sighed and shut her book. Ferdinand hovered expectantly in his bed, no doubt awaiting an answer from her that she was entirely unprepared to give, because she hadn’t read whatever damned pamphlet he was so upset about, firstly, but also because she found it difficult to take him seriously dressed in the frilled-collar nightshirt that she’d found for him a few days prior, itself lurking in a dresser intended for a wearer of undecided gender. His pile of mismatched pillows didn’t help, nor did the strand of hair stuck fully upright at the back of his head.

Ferdinand had recently graduated to the conscious world once more. Dorothea hadn’t prepared for the related evolution of her duties from simple essentials to the impossible task of keeping him entertained. Without constant distraction, Ferdinand was only a moment away from tossing himself from his bed. Linhardt had made it clear that he’d live a far shorter, and far more uncomfortable, life if he did such a damnable thing. And so Dorothea had traded in her chair for a bedroll tucked into the far corner, and had stolen, with the help of a charming duo of bored soldiers roaming the halls, a small chaise from an upstairs salon upon which she could perch for her daytime observation, and had fully committed herself to the task of serving as Ferdinand’s under-appreciated squire. Prisoner was another word for it, but she wasn’t so certain how to rectify that sort of term with regards to the inconvenient fact that she was her own gaoler as well.

Not that it didn’t, at the moment, feel positively punitive in every regard.

“Hubert said that it was a preliminary assessment,” Dorothea countered dryly. “Succession planning. Don’t you think it’s a little premature to worry about it now?”

“Not if that _succession_ is taken upon by a popular vote!” Ferdinand cried. “Which, of course, is the foundation of Edelgard’s entire vision, and yet Hubert proposes that we simply bide our time until that succession is upon us. Why, how does he suppose we hear this popular voice meant to share the name of that successor? Are we to gather every citizen of Fodlan, and have them parade themselves into the halls of Enbarr, and speak aloud whom they desire? Will we consider ten thousand candidates, and judge them by the wealth of their reputation? Why not simply select the kindest barmaid? Surely she would have a popular following, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I don’t think a friendly barmaid would make the worst queen that Fodlan has ever seen,” Dorothea replied dryly. “And I hardly believe that Hubert’s written that he intends to give an audience to every man and woman of the empire. I don’t think I’ve heard of him giving an audience to anyone.”

“They mean to establish local elections,” Ferdinand revealed, tossing the pamphlet aside with a disgusted noise. “From whence the nominated shall be selected for consideration at a larger scale.”

Dorothea cocked one of her brows. “And you don’t like the idea of local elections?”

“Do you remember how we brought about this war of ours?”

“Are you asking me if I remember the war?” Dorothea countered venomously. It only served to urge Ferdinand on.

“Pamphlets,” he illuminated, scowling at the one he’d abandoned with a dark glare. “Describing Her Majesty’s intentions, sent to each noble house. Not to the common people. Why? Because noble houses have governesses, Dorothea. Noble houses are _literate_. But how many farmer’s sons do you know who can read? What good will Edelgard’s nominations serve when they are printed and transmitted by the written word? Why, it will be simply— simply another insurrection, another emperor selected by the noble-born, this time because they will be the only ones who can read whatever fine thing Hubert has written for them. Tell me, Dorothea, truly, do you doubt for a moment that an alderman will not translate the ballots as he sees fit when he reads them to his town? Who will challenge him on it, if they cannot understand the— forgive me— _damned_ things themselves?”

Dorothea frowned. She supposed he had a point. She hadn’t learned to read herself until she’d been given scripts at the Mittelfrank. It’d been the most devastatingly embarrassing moment of her life. She’d feigned her way through that first afternoon before she’d run off to find someone—anyone— who could help her transform those strange, alien scribbles into words. She’d learned three shows by memory alone before she’d finally gotten good enough at it to read the scripts herself.

“It’s only a preliminary idea,” she repeated uneasily, unsettled by the memories she’d unwittingly drudged up.

“Yes, well, and yet it takes time to do these sorts of things. Planning. Preparation. I have told Hubert the same so many times that I imagine he hears my voice when he suffers a nightmare. Education, I tell him. Build the means for education. Crests, the nobility, all of it— it was a thousand-year war of unbalanced sides. Give the people education, and you will do far more for them than any well-intentioned election. We must do it _now_ if we mean to shore up the scales.”

Dorothea drummed her fingers against the cover of her forgotten book, lost for a single moment in thought before she stood and closed the distance between them to stand at his bedside. She shoved aside some of the papers scattered there before taking a dainty seat at the edge.

“Alright,” she said boldly, daring him to say something about propriety while she scanned what Hubert had prepared for him. “As it so happens, you have your very own woman of the common people here with you in this very room. What do you propose we do instead?”

Ferdinand looked back at her as if she’d told him that he’d been named emperor himself. “Excellent,” he replied breathlessly, scrambling for one of the many sheets covered with his neat, looping hand. “Let us begin.”

* * *

They’d planned a good portion of Fodlan’s new literacy platform by the time the palace’s bell tower rung the midnight call. Dorothea scrubbed at her bleary eyes just as Ferdinand let out a rather uncomely yawn. 

“I suppose we could continue this in the morning,” he admitted wearily. She smiled and nodded, brushing aside the snowfall of discarded pages spread across her lap so that she could skip free of the bed. Admittedly, her bedroll didn’t seem so inviting now that she’d spent much of the day atop Ferdinand’s mattress. He cleared his throat, apparently coming to the same conclusion as he traced her reluctant gaze towards the far corner.

“What would you think about a trade? Certainly I am not unused to bedrolls. Perhaps I can—”

“Absolutely not,” Dorothea snapped. Mages couldn’t predict the future, but she had a fair guess of what Linhardt would say to her if she let Ferdinand do something as stupid as that.

“I cannot abide your sleeping on the floor, Dorothea,” Ferdinand sighed. “Truly, has no one prepared a room for you?”

She felt her cheeks grow hot. “Fodlan is being _rebuilt_ , Ferdie,” she answered hastily. “Everyone has more important matters to attend to than worrying about making my bed.”

“And yet here you find yourself, worrying over mine,” Ferdinand said glumly. Dorothea suddenly felt quite desperate to toss herself from the window.

“Rebuilding is done in different ways” she tutted, standing stiffly. “In any case, I can sleep on the floor, Ferdinand. I’ve done it for years. Some would say I’ve even mastered it.”

He frowned, unconvinced. For some reason she found herself petrified at his bedside, as if she were a little girl readying herself for a reprimand. Ridiculous. She mustered her best glare. Ferdinand turned a strange shade of pink. He cleared his throat once more.

“I am afraid I simply cannot allow that,” he managed finally. He paused to collect the flotsam on his bed and arranged it in tall piles on his bedside table. “Forgive me for what I am about to propose,” he continued awkwardly, “but, to be frank with you, I have been given a rather large bed. If I were to turn on my side so that I was facing in this direction, why, I imagine than I would leave most of it entirely untouched.”

Dorothea swallowed her surprised laughter just before it had the chance to spill from her lips. “Ferdie... are you asking me to sleep with you?”

His face quickly took on a dark beetroot shade. “Gracious, Dorothea. I do wish you would not be so vulgar in your teasing. I am simply proposing an alternative that will provide you with the comfort that you deserve. And in the morning I will see to it that this issue of proper quartering is resolved. Obviously I have been remiss in allowing it to devolve into the current arrangement. But, alas,” he prattled on nervously, “I do not imagine that any member of the staff would heed my call at this hour.”

No, Dorothea didn’t imagine the stern women of the palace’s retinue would give much a damn at all about Ferdinand’s requests. She grinned despite herself and stepped a little closer to the bed.

“What a proposal,” she teased. His face bruised into a nearly painful looking purple.

“Must you always be so thorough in disarming me?”

“Oh, enough,” she sighed, shaking off the sudden pang of her guilt by lifting the corner of the thick quilt tossed across his bed. “You’ve convinced me, alright? And don’t you worry. I won’t spoil your reputation. This can be our little secret.”

“T-thank you,” he replied. Dorothea ignored the fact that she was quite obviously the better party to being offering any gratitude. She slipped off her shoes and quickly swept her legs under the quilt. Ferdinand lurched sideways to quickly assume the position he’d promised before.

“I... do hope you find it more comfortable,” he mumbled after a stilted moment. Dorothea smiled and leaned backwards into the pillows, sighing as the well-filled mattress soothed all of her sore muscles slack.

“It’s lovely,” she admitted. She flicked a quick gesture in the air to snatch the flame from the nearby lamp. The room felt cozily familiar once the light had been snuffed out. Dorothea savored it for a moment before she nestled her cheek against a pillow. “Goodnight, Ferdie.”

“Goodnight, Dorothea.” Ferdinand’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet. She could feel the rumble of it through their shared bedsheets. An unbidden wash of warmth spilled across her cheeks. “Sleep well.”

“Sleep well,” she replied. Although she’d feared it would be the opposite, the steady tempo of Ferdinand’s breathing quickly eased her asleep. 

* * *

The little garden beneath Ferdinand’s window, hidden as it was from the palace’s more popular promenades, was just as lovely as any of its ilk growing in imperial soil back in Enbarr. Despite her southern blood, Dorothea also had to admit that Fhirdiad’s cool summer air was an improvement on Enbarr’s oppressive humidity. The roses certainly seemed to benefit from it. It was impossible to pick her favorite from their number: the airy pink blooms, as sweet-smelling as confections; the deep burgundy reds, velveteen and sultry; the bursts of virginal white blossoms, as lovely in their purity as their sisters were in their bold splendor. 

Dorothea couldn’t stop herself from humming a cheery tune as she helped Ferdinand arrange their picnic in a flat spot between two rosebushes. First came a soft, woolen blanket, which he snapped with a crack in the air before he smoothed it across the grass. Next Dorothea set down their basket and pulled the carafe of sweet wine from inside. After that the cheese, her favorite, soft and creamy with a velvety rind; fat, purple grapes picked just before their tartness had turned too sweet; two fat coils of sausage, smelling of anise and allspice; and great chunks of sticky honeycomb in a glass jar, oozing gold.

They sat together on the blanket. Ferdinand spirited two glasses for them and filled them with wine. He looked hale in the sunlight. The gauntness of his cheeks had gone, the dark circles under his eyes erased. Dorothea supposed that she could admit, if silently, and only to herself, that his long, wavy mane was nearly as lovely as the wonders growing in the garden. He’d dressed himself in a smart scarlet doublet with gold and cream filigree panels striped across the chest. Her sundress was its perfect opposite, with a pale gold bodice accented with red rose embroidery around the collar and along the sleeves. They were a handsome pair.

Dorothea plucked a grape from the bunch and popped it in her mouth. Next, a smidgen of soft cheese smeared against a cracker speckled with cardamom and sesame seeds. The wine was perfectly matched to the meal. Of course it was. She wasn’t surprised to find that Ferdinand was a fine sommelier, along with everything else.

She glanced over at him from across the blanket. He looked so pleased with their spread. She smiled. He smiled back at her, all white teeth and ruddy cheeks. She laughed when she spotted a stray sprig of something caught in the hair at his temple. It ruined the effect of his otherwise perfect ensemble. She waved him closer, readying herself to pluck whatever loose thread had found its way there. He obliged, first neatly setting aside his glass and ensuring that no crackers would be trod over in his advance.

Dorothea frowned when he arrived. The spidery black mark at his cheek wasn’t a thread. It was on his skin. A smudge of something, maybe. She rubbed the edge of her thumb against it to smear it away. It spread under her touch with a sharp crack. It quickly split and spread along the crest of his cheekbone like a fissure through broken porcelain. A cold terror spilled down her spine.

“Ferdinand,” she gasped. He stared back at her, bewildered. The crack jumped the length of his temple and traced the bridge of his nose. All of it then broke away, eye and all, as if his face were a patchwork suddenly torn apart. Dorothea lurched forward to catch the pieces as they fell. No matter how she tried to push them back together, no angle fit them into place. The brittle pieces shattered between her fingers and pricked her skin. 

“Ferdinand!”

Something dark and viscous spilled from where his face had been. It stained her fingers and spilled down her wrists. Somehow she knew that soon she’d be swimming in it. Drowning. _Ferdinand!_

“Dorothea!”

It was dark. Ferdinand was hovering over her. His hair was spilled around them both, not in the loose ringlets from their garden picnic but in flat, stringy strands. She pressed her fingers against his cheeks, seeking out the faults that would soon split him into pieces again. His skin was feverishly warm. She could feel the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the hollow bowl above his jaw from where his convalescence had sucked all of the richness from him long before.

“Oh,” Dorothea gasped, realizing too late what had happened. Her heart hammered in her chest. She snatched away her fingers from him as quick as if she’d been scalded. She felt as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of stone. No matter how desperate she was for it, she couldn’t seem to slip her breath past it to fill her lungs. Oh. How horrible he’d looked. A broken bird.

“Oh, _no_ ,” she whimpered. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks. Ferdinand’s hands fluttered hesitatingly against her shoulders. She was as desperate to flinch away from them as she was to cower beneath them. That’s all she’d ever really wanted, wasn’t it, for all of those terrible years? Shelter. Gods. What had she done?

Ferdinand slowly wrapped an arm around her and drew her to his chest. He tensed against her, as if she’d bruise from the slightest touch. Why wouldn’t she? People were so fragile. How many had she seen crushed; sundered; cut apart? Five years of it. Five years! Her breath hitched into gasping sobs. Ferdinand hugged her tighter, one palm cradling the back of her head and the other, broad and hot, circling the space between her shoulder blades.

“It’s alright,” he whispered. “It’s alright. It’s over. You’re safe. It’s alright.”

She buried her nose into his collar. How could any of it be alright? She hadn’t dared to step foot outside the palace, not for weeks, not since they’d taken it. How could she possibly look upon Fhirdiad’s burned corpse?

“Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet...”

How could she greet the people who lived there, knowing that she might have killed their sons?

“She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet...”

How could she?

“She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree...”

Ferdinand was singing. She realized it nearly too late. His voice was a hushed tenor, sweet and perfectly pitched, even whispered as it was. Dorothea’s harried mind stuttered and stilled at the familiar melody.

_“But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree._

_In a field by the river my love and I did stand._

_And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand._

_She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;_

_But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.”_

She recognized the song. It wasn’t from one or her scripts, nor from the hymnbooks they’d all been given at Garreg Mach. It was a soldier’s song, sung during the last hours of a midnight watch when it left them feeling lonely and nostalgic.

 _Oh, Ferdinand_ , she would have chided him if her weeping hadn’t left her so exhausted. _Sweet fool, to sing me such a sad song_. She drifted off to sleep, still sniffling and hiccuping, and thought about how she’d have to teach him something kinder.

* * *

Dorothea woke late. She could sense the hour even before she’d opened her tear-swollen eyes. The palace was humming with life. She heard the whinny of a horse and the cackle of a flock of ducks milling in a nearby fountain. A patrol of nurses or perhaps scullery maids marched down the hall outside. Someone a floor above them shoved something heavy across the floorboards. They squeaked and groaned with every step. 

And there: a breath, slow and steady, perhaps still sleeping, too. It was soft and warm against her cheeks. She allowed herself to enjoy it for a moment, just like she was savoring the glow of a sunbeam spilt across her legs. Finally, slowly, as if she feared that waking too quickly would ruin everything, she opened her eyes.

Ferdinand was close enough to count the faint freckles scattered across his cheeks. The sight of him made her ache, although she wasn’t quite certain why. He stirred under her gaze, first slowly with the twitch of his lips and then all at once. She watched as his dark pupils settled on her. One of his brows arched, pained, as if he’d just been pinched.

“Hello,” she said. _Good morning_ would have been better. She chided herself silently, still transfixed by the way he was looking at her. No one had ever looked at her like that: not beloved friends, nor the men who’d been so desperate to win her shallow favor. It made her feel both giant and impossibly small. She fought the urge to cover his face with her hands.

“Ferdinand,” she said instead, “would it bother you if I kissed you?”

“Bother me,” Ferdinand repeated slowly, stunned. “It would be a torture.” Her breath caught in her throat. “How would I think of anything else once it was done? What would my life be but a distant memory endlessly repeated, if that were the only kiss that you were to give me?”

“Oh, Ferdie,” she laughed, eyes watering again as she snuck closer to him, the tip of her nose brushing clumsily with his. “That isn’t what I meant.”

She kissed him before he had the chance to reply. His lips trembled beneath hers, hesitant for a half moment until the heat of her mouth convinced him to be honest. She nudged herself into a better angle, heart fluttering as she tempted his tongue with hers. His body was a natural fit against hers, even lean as it had become. She felt the desperation that had haunted her when she’d struggled to heal him transformed into something far more sublime. Gods. She loved him, didn’t she? Out of every man she’d ever met, none other than _Ferdinand von Aegir_.

He pulled back gently. She could read his intentions as clear as if he’d spoken them. _We must be cautious_ , no doubt he’d soon say, or some foolishness about her honor. Her thoughts shifted from the strong planes of his body to the specter of his abandoned house. His father had been imprisoned for years. No doubt the Aegir estate was in ruins, along with whatever else was left of his once grand inheritance. He’d be lucky if it hadn’t been transformed into a bandit’s lair. And that said nothing for Fodlan entire, to which he’d already dedicated himself under the spirit of wholesale enlightenment. Of course he had. He was as hopeless as he was ambitious. Maybe that was why she loved him.

“Marry me,” she said before she lost the nerve. Ferdinand’s eyes grew wide. For a moment doubt washed over her, ice-cold and cruel. He chased it away by grasping her hands to his chest.

“Dorothea,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper, “I am... I am a ruined man. I have nothing to offer you, no matter what the courts deign to call me. I will be lucky not to leave this place as a cripple.”

“And I am often in a foul temper,” Dorothea countered, leaning closer. “Sometimes I use foul language. Some would call me vain. I wouldn’t disagree with them. I am a terrible cook. I’ve never learned how to ride sidesaddle. I wasn’t born to be a duchess,” she admitted to him finally, “and I’m not so convinced that I’ll make a suitable one now, or ever, not even if I tried. Would you have me, even then?”

“Always,” he promised.

“So give me your answer.”

He tilted away. She watched him anxiously, as charmed by him as she was utterly terrified by the sudden prospect of his refusal. He combed a hand through her mussed hair, tucking it behind her ear before he traced the shape of her cheek with the back of his hand.

“You know my answer,” he said, breathless again. “I fear with you I have never been subtle. You must have known for years.”

“Ferdinand,” she insisted. Her heart drummed in her ears.

“I...” He faltered, cheeks ruddy with a flush. “If you will have me, Dorothea, I will take you for my wife.”

“Good.”

He laughed, startled by her simple answer. She laughed as well.

“And so you’ll be my husband,” she said, blurry eyed again, this time from giddiness. “Gods help us both.”

“Damn us, even,” he replied, bright and emboldened like she hadn’t seen him before. “Certainly I will be named a heretic for how I shall kneel at your feet.”

“Oh, Ferdinand,” Dorothea groaned, rolling her eyes.

“A traitor,” he added, tangling his fingers with hers and drawing them upwards to press his lips against them, “for pledging my fealty to your sovereignty alone.”

“Ferdinand!”

She laughed and lurched forward to kiss him again before he spouted any more poetic nonsense. He kissed her back, seemingly less cautious about her honor now that she’d so boldly pledged herself to him. She knew she needed to remind him of Linhardt’s orders about proper bedrest. No doubt there were dozens of other daunting tasks ahead as well. Seeing to it that the duke was properly mended, and his home mended as well, and all of his people, and even the rest of the world, perhaps. But now, just for a moment, even if it wouldn’t last, she decided to simply savor it: the promise and the pleasure of a war won and a life lived well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Ferdinand’s song is “Down by the Salley Gardens,” a poem by Yeats.


End file.
